Catching miracles -- Quotations and aphorisms -- Exotic quotations -- Misused quotations -- Accumulable quotations -- At the feet of the footnotes -- Quotable people -- The odds against reading -- Three concepts of complete works -- Foolishly complete works -- Classics and bestsellers -- Shelf theory -- The economics of the limelight -- The rise of the image -- The secret of fame -- What to do with the mediocrities? -- The glorification of the author -- From the microtext to the I.